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BEAUTIFUL PARKING
Once upon a time the parking garage was created as a dark place filled with sinister shadows and exhaust fumes. But it doesn't have to be that way. Over the past few years some of the best parking garages have been designed and constructed to be more like parking palaces, as architects focus their design creativity on making the inner-city garage an aesthetic contributor to our urban experience. — Published 2006.1115
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REJUVENATING BOOMERS
An article in the New York Times late in 2005 reported on the escalating demise of brutalist buildings designed and constructed during the post-war years — the hard-edged, unforgiving, sterile, and often-humorless creations of modernism's aging gurus and, especially, their uninspired copyists. — Published 2006.1108
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WORLD OF CITIES
Staking its reputation around an ethical debate, Venice, Italy's 10th Biennale Architecture Show presents the successes and challenges of 16 of the world's cities and asks: "can architects make a difference?" The "Cities, Architecture, and Society" exhibit curated by David Burdett, architect and professor at the London School of Economics, stops short of providing solutions, but states, "how we shape cities will determine the future of our planet." — Published 2006.1101
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LA COLOR SCHOOL
From her desk, Dena Primary Center principal Patricia Romero can watch children playing in the central courtyard. She also uses the vantage point to admire this new campus that is nestled in a densely populated neighborhood of East Los Angeles. Rachlin Architects have designed an elliptical amphitheater-style courtyard bordered by an administrative complex and two multipurpose buildings. — Published 2006.1018
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FOBA KYOTO
Some architects pursue consistent themes that can be adjusted to any site or building type, while others take a fresh approach to every project, giving each a distinctive expression. FOBA, the firm that Katsu Umebayashi established on the outskirts of Kyoto in 1994, has a foot in both camps. — Published 2006.0927
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DOWN UNDER LOUVERS
While architects in the Northern Hemisphere have been appropriately fixated on manipulating southern orientations of buildings in pursuit of climate-responsive architecture, those "Down Under" have been giving the same attention to north-facing facades.
In the new Business School for Auckland University of Technology (AUT) in New Zealand, the architecture firm JASMAX has designed a northwest facade that puts on a visual show in response to the daily sun path. — Published 2006.0920
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PRIMARY PREFAB
Having provided the United Kingdom's educational system with new school building design concepts throughout the 1950s and 60s, Southwest London has once again become a proving ground for a new type of educational construction. — Published 2006.0906
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MERCEDES-BENZ BUILDING
With the bulging prow of its aluminum and glass skeleton looming beside the fast lanes of Highway B14 in Stuttgart, Germany, the new Mercedes-Benz Museum lives up to the German automaker's refined engineering image. On entering the structure designed by the Dutch firm UN Studio, visitors ascend eight stories to the top, then wind down twin ramps through a collection of 160 vehicles displayed over 178,000 square feet (16,500 square meters) of exhibition space. — Published 2006.0830
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NOUVEL'S TORRE AGBAR
The Torre Agbar, a new tall building from Ateliers Jean Nouvel, in collaboration with b720 Arquitectura, Garcia-Ventosa Arquitectura, and Leopoldo Rodes Arquitecto, thrusts into Barcelona's skyline from the Placa de las Glories, a gritty district that Barcelona's planners have designated "the next big thing," a new center of commercial activity. — Published 2006.0823
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Y INSIDE
In this suburb of the nation's capital, the Fort Washington, Maryland YMCA project is overshadowed by all the surrounding built history. Yet this rehabilitation of a former supermarket should not be underestimated. The firm of GTM Architects has successfully transformed the nondescript building into a "Y" that is at once visually poetic, pragmatically functional, and admirably committed to its community. — Published 2006.0719
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